“Oh, Miles,” she said suddenly, looking up from pouring him a second cup of tea. “I don’t suppose there is a vacant steward’s position or bailiff’s position on one of your estates, is there? Or I don’t suppose you have felt the need of a secretary?”
“No to all three,” he said, looking into large and anxious gray eyes as she crossed the room with his cup and saucer. “Did you meet a beggar in St. James’s Park, Abby? Or a destitute duke on Oxford Street? Or was it the person who cut your hair?”
“You are laughing at me,” she said.
“Forgive me.” He smiled at her. “I was teasing you. Who needs a job?”
“Boris,” she said. She sat down on the edge of her chair again and leaned toward him. “Did you notice how thin he is, Miles? He used not to be so thin. We paid off as many of Papa’s debts as we could after we had sold the house and all the furnishings. But there are still some, and Boris swears he is going to pay them all. I thought it would be easier for him if he had regular employment.”
“Abby,” the earl said gently, “from my brief meeting with him last evening, I had the impression that your brother is a proud young man.”
“But if the idea came from you,” she said. “If you could plead with him to help you out of a nasty situation. If it seemed that I had not spoken to you at all about him. If it could seem that he was doing you a favor instead of the other way around.” She sat back suddenly and lifted her cup so jerkily to her lips that she spilled some tea into the saucer. “I am asking too much, am I not? I am too demanding. I have not been married to you for a week yet. I am sorry.”
“It is not that.” He set his cup and saucer down on a side table and got to his feet. “I just think your brother would not accept charity, Abby. And he would see through any of those schemes you suggest in a moment. I don’t imagine he is defective in understanding, is he?”
“No,” she said. “It was rather stupid of me, was it not?”
He took the saucer from her hand and set it on the tray. He held out a hand for one of hers and drew her to her feet.
“Concerned and loving of you,” he said. “Why did your father have so many debts?”
She stared at him. “He was sick,” she said. “For several years. There were medicines and other things.”
“It’s none of my business,” he said, seeing her discomposure. “Leave the matter of your brother with me, will you, Abby? I shall see if there is some way I can help him without his knowing it. It will have to be a devious scheme, I’m afraid. He will not accept your six thousand, by the way.”
She swallowed awkwardly. “I know,” she said.
He smiled at her. “It really is very pretty, you know,” he said, “your hair.”
“Oh, don’t mention it,” she said, “or I shall start to bawl.”
He laughed. “Abby,” he said, “did you give yourself even a moment to consider?”
“I planned it,” she said, “for all of three hours. It was not an impulsive thing at all.”
He laughed again and drew her into his arms. “I like it,” he said. “Promise me that you will not braid it tonight.”
She giggled a little nervously.
He lowered his head and kissed her, opening his mouth over hers and rubbing the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips until she drew back her head and looked up at him a little uncertainly.
He kissed her again more briefly and firmly, and reluctantly let her go. He did not want to ruin a very precarious peace between them by committing the faux pas of trying to make love to her during the day.
Although at that particular moment he would have liked nothing better.
12
YOU AREN’T FOXED, ARE YOU, GER?” The Earl of Severn stepped past his friend’s manservant into his somewhat untidy parlor. “This early in the day?”
“Foxed?” Sir Gerald Stapleton said indignantly and nasally. “I have the devil of a cold and have been sprawled here all day feeling sorry for myself. Have a seat.”
“Thank you,” the earl said, seating himself as his friend blew his nose loudly. “I thought perhaps you had taken yourself out of the country. Haven’t seen you for almost three days.”
“That is hardly surprising,” Sir Gerald said, “when you have been tied to your wife’s apron strings all that time.”
“Jealousy, jealousy,” Lord Severn said. “You should set your face over a bowl of steaming water, Ger, and throw a towel over your head.”